Monday, September 29, 2008

Hokay, so. Here is Mt. Rainier and Pike's Market. Those are some sweet pictures you might say....

Anyway, my first full day in the state of Washington was spent getting carsick on my way up a twisty mountain. The place is call Mt. Rainier and it's a really awesome place to visit. The mountain was pretty foggy while we were journeying up and I got pretty carsick, but the sun was shining and I got to take some really neat pictures, so the whole day wasn't a bust! It was really fun to just get out every 10 minutes or so and see a waterfall or new view from the mountain. And since I take lots and lots of pictures, I've decided to get a photobucket account where I can upload ALL my pictures for y'all to see :) I'll still post some pictures in the blog, but if you're interested in seeing more, just go to the side bar and there will be a link and you can check out the other pics :)

Yesterday was spent in downtown Seattle getting all my checked baggage (all of it got here safe and sound!!) and exploring Pike's Place Market. I had some cheese curds for the first time (also known as squeaky cheese-very tasty!), saw some really cool jewelry, saw the first Starbucks, went by the restaurant that's in Sleepless in Seattle, and got to feed some Seagulls outside the restaurant on Pier 54 (or somewhere around there...). Today has been spend buying insurance, job hunting, and attempting to consolidate my loans...GROSS!!! But in the next couple of days Aaron and I are going to be visiting his grandparents in Oregon so I'll have more tales to tell then :)

Until next time...

Photo Captions:

-Mt. Rainier (ps-this mountain can be seen pretty wherever I drive around here...it's pretty wonderful!!)

-Waterfall on the way up the mountain

-At the top of a waterfall

-HUUUGE spiny lobster tail at Pike's Market...I wish I could have caught one this summer

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Aaron and I arrive at the Amtrak and start taking our 5 totes and 1 box to get checked, only to find out that the train taking us from St. Louis to Chicago is not a train that carries checked luggage. After much pleading, the luggage guy said he'd send our stuffs on the next luggage train coming through the STL. After re-adjusting the bags so they all weighed under 50 lbs., re-taping the totes and getting out our carry-on bags, we hopped on the train at 6:30 am and arrived in Chi-town an hour late because we had to stop several times for freight trains to pass by us. No worries though; we had an hour to spare before climbing aboard the EMPIRE BUILDER!!! (sweet name for a train, eh?)

At 2:45 pm, we got on our double-decker train and begin our trip to Seattle. There isn't really a whole lot to say about the train ride. We did not pay the extra money for a sleeper car, but sleeping in our coach seats wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. The first night I was extremely tired from getting up the morning before and from the excitement of a new adventure/worrying about waking up in time to make the train. But the second night was not comfortable or restful. When I wasn't sleeping, I read the book, The Time Traveler's Wife. (very good tale about timeless love...), chilled in the observation car, had a meal in the dining car or took SWEET PICTURES!!! (which as you can see, are posted).

After arriving in Seattle on the 26th, Aaron's mom picked us up from the train station and we took a little driving tour through Seattle. The Space needle was pretty cool looking, Pike's Market was nice and so was the art scattered around the city. The plethora of museums around Seattle was very exciting, but I was sad to learn that many of them require a 20 dollar bill to enter (NOTHING like St. Louis museums...). We didn't really have time to walk around the city, but there was talk of heading to the city tomorrow, so hopefully we'll have a better chance to check out the city then.

The rest of the night we spend getting settled in and today we visited Mt. Rainier and took a ton of pictures (it was gorgeous!!! but I'll post those in the next blog...)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Like I stated before, I'm stuck in St. Louis for a few days until my adventure gets up and running again. So here's what happened:

Aaron and I got ready to leave Saturday morning. We had originally planned to leave Friday, but I was definitely NOT finished packing. We had taken my car in to Midas to get it checked out, so we figured the car was good to go. We packed up the car and headed out of town and were enjoying our drive. About 60 miles out, near Bowling Green, Aaron noticed something smelled funny and we needed to make a bathroom stop anyway. Aaron checked the transmission and the dipstick was bone dry so he put in a bit of transmission fluid and it was like pouring onto the ground. Wonderful. We then realized Midas suckered us and took my money! The Midas people told us the tranmission was nothing to be worried about, but the tie-rod and barrings were a MAJOR safety concern (the guy wouldn't shut up about how important it was to our safety to get these things fixed), so we trusted them (silly us) and got screwed in the process. THANKFULLY I have AAA and we got a tow.

After much brainstorming, Aaron and I have decided to take a train out to Seattle, on which we'll be leaving tomorrow...at 6:35am. We'll be spending about 2.5 days on the train to get out there, but it's much less stressful and much less expensive. AND I've never ridden a train before, so I'm pretty stoked! And dont worry...I'll be taking many pictures :)

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Since I'm stuck in St. Louis for a few more days with a broken car...I've decided to post some fun pictures of my visit with Ben-jamin and Maria. Not much else to say aside from CURSES!!! AND that I love these people :)

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Like the title states, this blog has been a LONG time coming...I meant to set it up at the beginning of the summer when I started working at Sea Base, but as each day off flew by, I just never got around to it. Alas, here I am with some fun tales to tell from a summer that is quickly coming to a close while I begin to move on to another phase of my life: Seattle. But before I get into that crazy nonsense, I will tell all about my summer :)

Florida Sea Base. The summer of a lifetime, to say the least! Fishing, kayaking, hiking, snorkeling, and sailing every week was a great way to spend 3 months in the Keys. But of course, I was there for the scouts, who helped me learn a lot about myself and about other people. My appreciation for nature was once again renewed and I've learned to really enjoy fishing (especially when I get to punch the fish!!), which I never thought was possible. It's hard to put 3 months of adventure into a short paragraph, so hopefully these pictures will help.

Pictures in order: Sailboat at the Sunset Festival, Me on the Island (Big Munson Island, that is!) with an anole, a shot of the ocean from Cayo Hueso (Key West!), On top of the old US-1 looking down at Bahia Honda, and a shot of the old US-1 from the beach at Bahia Honda